Jinkies!
by licoricewolf
Summary: Crane's the kind of guy that takes your joke and turns it into a valuable life lesson.


"There is a delusion among the masses— " His head turns slightly to read the nametag on the guard's uniform— "— Matthew. Do you know what this delusion is?"

Crane is a quiet man, who likes to use big words and complex sentence structure. When he speaks plainly, everyone but Harleen Quinzel gets uneasy. It's when he is no longer Doctor Crane but Professor Crane that one must worry, when he poses seemingly innocent questions and nudges his pupil towards the answer, when he smiles encouragingly and nods his head in approval. He does all of these things now and the sight is only made more unsettling by the blood dribbling down his nose and mouth onto the front of his orange jumpsuit.

Poor Matthew needs a moment to find his voice. "Th-that there's no such th-thing a-a-as f-fear," he says. It's a valiant effort.

Crane's blue eyes move skyward and scan the ceiling for a few seconds as he considers. He purses his lips and shrugs.

"That's quite right, Matthew." His eyes descend back to the guard's face and he smiles pleasantly. The guard feels the bottom of his stomach drop. He has not seen Jonathan Crane smile once during his hours working at Arkham Asylum, and he knows that very shortly, he will not see anything ever again.

"But, unfortunately, that's not the answer I'm looking for."

The scrawny man shifts and turns his body, keeping one arm over Matthew's throat to pin him to the wall, and opens the other arm to gesture at the hallway behind him. Two guards are on the ground. One is dead and one will be very lucky if he has all of his motor skills when he regains consciousness. There is blood, and no one is able to identify precisely how much is from Crane's nearly broken nose and split lip and how much is from the smashed skull of one guard and severed jugular of the other.

"You see," he says casually, "There is a general delusion that to cause fear, one must be physically intimidating, that one must invoke a subconscious connection to the beasts we are born knowing will tear us apart for their dinner. And that is perfectly understandable."

Jonathan brings his broken glasses up and sticks them between his teeth for a moment. They were snapped in half and one lens shattered when Matthew's supervisor punched the scrawny doctor square on his bony nose. There was no reason to do it, not really. None other than to amuse himself, and in doing so, commit all three of them to certain death. There is blood smeared all over the glass from his slashed throat.

"But as we have just demonstrated," Crane continues, "that isn't quite true, now, is it? One does not have to be a two-hundred pound police academy drop-out to inspire fear, do they? No, of course not. Here I am, let's say, one-twenty at the most on a good day, six-three but I hunch, spend my time reading Tolkien and Gaiman. I'm not that scary, am I?"

His mouth opens in a full-blown grin this time, and Matthew can see the yellowed corners of crooked teeth that have seen too many cigarettes and too much coffee. He believes for less than a second that he will see his fiance and his mother and his goldfish named Bob again, and then Crane's broken glasses are shoved into his stomach. The professor twists them and works them deeper into muscle and fat and vital organs, still more blood staining his uniform and his hand.

"That's where you're wrong about _fear_." He leans in closer to the guard. After all, he can't see very well without his glasses. "_Anything_ will scare you if only you _let it_."

Matthew gives one last broken gurgle and Jonathan steps away, letting his pupil fall to the floor. He wipes his bony fingers on the side of his orange jumpsuit. There are shouts and scuffles near the end of the hallway, and he can hear them quickly getting closer and closer— but he doesn't mind. He is calm when they arrive, his hands loose at his sides, dabbing at a bit of dried blood in his mouth with his tongue. He greets his new guests pleasantly, but he does not smile.

"Dr. Leland." He inclines his head towards her slightly. "I'm going to need a new pair of glasses."


End file.
